Generative AI will disrupt 90% of jobs - what it means for the future of work

Here’s what that means for the future of work in New Zealand.

Cognizant’s ‘New Work, New World’ report, developed in collaboration with Oxford Economics, explores generative AI’s influence on productivity and the future of work, revealing that up to 90% of jobs will experience some level of disruption within the next decade.

From entry-level analysts to senior executives, roles will evolve as Gen AI becomes embedded in everyday workflows. Some workers will need to learn how to work with Gen AI as it assists with some job tasks, while others will see their roles taken over by the technology.

Cognizant’s research predicts a sharp acceleration in adoption between 2026 and 2030, as Gen AI shifts from simple task automation to a strategic enabler of business transformation. Organisations that prioritise AI literacy and workforce readiness today will be best positioned to lead in this new era.

Against this backdrop, participants at the recent Building the Foundations for AI Success roundtable co-hosted by Cognizant and the New Zealand Herald suggested New Zealand was falling behind in AI considering it became the last country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to launch a national AI strategy in July this year.

Founder of postgraduate education company AcademyEX and AI Futurist, Frances Valintine said the national strategy lacked a “north star”.

“It was more like a plan than a strategy. New Zealand needs to look at where it can differentiate itself in the AI sector and thinking more widely about the sort of talent it wants to attract and how best to upskill the current workforce,” Valintine said.

Valintine believes the key is to upskill the current workforce now and ensure the country is introducing AI into early learning to prepare future generations.

Interestingly, fellow roundtable participant Chris Bradley who heads up Enterprise Architecture and Portfolio management at telco 2Degrees has recently engaged AcademyEX to assist in their company’s AI month.

He said it assisted the company gain a broader understanding of AI beyond technical considerations, including how it can help with sustainability and addressing ethical challenges.

“AI looks very different to a radio access network engineer than it does to our legal or commercial team, so being able to actually engage people at a different level and get them to use AI in their particular functions so they can see it’s not just a technology function driving their outcomes was helpful,” Bradley said.

A key discussion point was the need to educate people on how AI can augment human workers and help business functions evolve, while shifting away from doom-and-gloom narratives about AI’s potential impact towards a focus on opportunity and growth.

Taking this into account, ANZ Banks’ Innovation Enablement Lead, Emerald Cagney, said part of that education is ensuring the right guidelines are in place.

“At ANZ we have a lot of guardrails and we're very clear about when people should be using AI and when they shouldn't be using it,” Cagney said.

“We're a firm believer of having a human in the loop. AI is about augmenting our bankers to support our customers with better insights, so we must ensure the right people have access to the right tools as well.”

“What we’re seeing is definitely an evolution and it comes back to education and ensuring people are staying up-to-date and continuing to learn and be future-ready,” she continued.

To prepare its workforce for the future, ANZ Bank has launched a number of AI master classes and established an AI immersion centre, which has engaged about 400 of the bank’s leaders.

Cognizant New Zealand Markets Lead, Kat Carter, agreed having a human in the loop is especially important in the security space. She calls it human-centric security awareness.

“What this means is moving beyond basic training to adaptive, AI-enhanced education that evolves with threat landscapes and empowers users to recognise deepfakes, social engineering and AI-generated scams,” Carter said.

Going further on the education front, Ana Ivanovic-Tongue, who sits on the Executive Council of the AI Forum, said the forum is there to assist all local businesses with education in the AI space and has a number of working groups working with different industry sectors.

“We've got a working group for agriculture, education, health, environment as well as a kāhui Māori working group, which is looking at data sovereignty and governance, and a Pacific working group,” Ivanovic-Tongue said.

“Each one of these groups have their own activities to support the sector and it's very much around collaboration, connections, education, literacy and assisting businesses that do not have AI policies.”

For Valintine, New Zealand needs to pick up the pace on AI and work on being future ready now because the country doesn’t realise that the gap (with more prepared nations) is going to get bigger over a very short period of time.